


REFLECTIONS

by Anne_Fairchild



Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Comfort, Love, M/M, musings, retrospection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 01:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17335988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anne_Fairchild/pseuds/Anne_Fairchild
Summary: One evening before bed, Leo puts his thoughts and feelings about Riario to paper.





	REFLECTIONS

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-series ending, nebulous non-canon.

My life before I met him was full and satisfying, yet he’s brought me unexpected riches. One day there he was - infuriating, intriguing, exasperating. Isolated and alone. Solitary, not knowing any other way to survive. Without knowing love or care or friendship from anyone, only duty to others for their sake. Far more intelligent than most I have met, his curiosity equals mine and there is humor in him too. He’ll laugh at himself now, understanding at last that I laugh with him, no longer at his expense.

He’s stopped seeing the attention I pay him as a threat, something to fear. I’m no longer his weakness but, I hope, a source of strength. He allows himself to lean on me, to need me in his life. Me, the ill-favored bastard who wanted no ties, a man who never thought of personal responsibility. Well, Otranto taught me that personal responsibility was real, like it or not - and he has taught me that some responsibilities bring joy, not sorrow. He is the good among all the bad.

He doesn’t see himself that way of course. In his mind he’s still a soul in darkness, unwilling to fully acknowledge the influence others have always had on his thoughts and actions. We’re still working on that, he and I. At least he listens to me now, truly listens. Once I never thought we’d get that far. You would think his darkness - his history and his nature - would have made me keep my distance, but instead it drew me to him. By my own nature I was able to rise above my beginnings and my past. His more sensitive nature kept him in the dark, unable or unwilling to seek a way out. I want to be his ease, his comfort. I want to be the solace he’s never had. I’ve always been selfish, it’s how I’ve survived. He has taught me the pleasure and contentment of doing for another. He allows me to live and to think not only of myself.

I know his secrets and his secret shames, as he knows mine. I’ve shared my regrets with him, my failures and my own fears. He knows he can’t fix them and that I wouldn’t want him to if I could; I just want someone I trust to share my thoughts with. 

There are things we don’t speak of because there’s no need. He knows that if I don’t understand completely, I still know what he needs and what he wants, mostly without his telling me in words. He sometimes reacts as if he’s embarrassed or ashamed, but I don’t let that stop me. There are times I spoil him and cater to him as if he was a child still, because I know he was never able to be a child or have a childhood, or experience kindness or tenderness. So if he injures himself, is ill or just out of sorts, I make sure he knows he has someone who cares about him and wants to ease his discomfort. The times he tries to do the same for me, even if awkwardly or with less than perfect skill, the look in his eyes is all the balm I really need. I could say that I let him tend to me to make him feel better, but the truth is I drink in being looked after by him when I’ve never cared for people fussing over me before, because it’s his way of showing me he cares for me as much as I care for him. His comforting of me allows the gentle soul that only I have seen to shine through the darkness. 

The best part of the day is after work is finished, we’ve eaten and drunk our fill and all that’s left is to retire to our comfortable bed upstairs - but not for the reason you might think. Yes, we enjoy our coupling, but the most surprising intimacy to me has become simply washing at the basin, stripping off our clothes and lying on the bed together. We talk and plan, we ease each other’s aches and pains, tend each other’s fevers, laugh, and lie quietly happy in each other’s arms. There is for me nothing sweeter than his touch, his voice, at such times.

Sex between us is different from the dozens of meetings I’ve had with both men and women over the years. I needed to have those experiences, I think, in order to appreciate that we are more. He is mostly reticent about the act and will probably always be so, but that’s not to say he never initiates things - he does, rather shyly, but then becomes surprisingly passionate once we have begun. It’s those times that make me humble, understanding what he’s overcome to share himself with me in this way. And when we lie together afterwards and I can hear and feel his contentment, I’m happier with him than I would have believed any one person could make me.

The candle is almost out now so I must finish trying to put my feelings for him to paper. “What are you writing?” he asks me, relaxed and drowsy with wine. He raises his arms to me. “Come to bed, Leo.” And I do. Because although neither of us puts a name to our feelings - perhaps we fear some sort of reprisal on our happiness - it’s love we feel whether we use the word or not. As long as we understand each other, nothing else matters.


End file.
